José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix born 26 January 1963, is a Portuguese professional football manager, coach and former player, who is currently the head coach of Premeira Club Benfica. His team is currently unbeaten in the Portuguese league, even though they are third on the table. The veteran manager refused to discuss his future this week ahead of Benfica’s final game of the season against Estoril Praia. He said: “There’s a match against Estoril, and from Monday onwards I’ll be able to answer questions about my future as a coach and Benfica’s future.” He is shown below being lauded by one of his previous hero players!!
After an uneventful career as a midfielder in Portuguese Leagues, Mourinho retired from playing aged 24 and moved into coaching. He was first an interpreter for Bobby Robson at Sporting CP and Porto, before gaining success as an assistant at Barcelona under Robson and his successor, Louis van Gaal. After brief managerial stints at Benfica and Unaio de Leiria, Mourinho returned to Porto in 2002, winning two Primeria League titles, the Taca de Portugual, the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League. That success earned him a move to Chelsea in 2004, where he remarked, "I think I'm [the] special one" at his first press conference, leading to British media dubbing him "the Special One". With Chelsea, Mourinho won two Premier League titles, an FA Cup, and two League Cups in three seasons, before departing in 2007 amid reports of disagreements with owner Roman Abramovich.
In 2008, Mourinho joined Italian club Inter Milan. He led them to the Serie A title in his first season, before winning a continental treble!! That is, the Coppa Intalia and the UEFA Champions League—in 2010, a first in history for an Italian club. This made him one of five coaches to have won the European Cup with two clubs, and later that year, he was crowned the inaugural FIFA World Coach of the Yeat.
Mourinho then moved to Real Madrid in Spain, where he won the La Liga title in 2011-12, breaking several domestic records for points, goals scored, and wins in a season. He also became the fifth coach to win league titles in four countries. Mourinho left Real Madrid in 2013 and rejoined Chelsea, where he won another League title and League Cup, but was dismissed in 2015 after a poor run of results.
Mourinho was appointed manager of Manchester United in 2016 and of Tottenham Hotspur in 2019, but both tenures ended acrimoniously. At Old Trafford, he won the Community Shield, League Cup and UEFA Europa League in his first season. At Tottenham, he led the team to a League Cup final. He managed Roma from 2021 to 2024, winning the inaugural UEFA Europa ConferenceLeaguew in his first season. This was Roma's first European title and their first trophy since 2008. The achievement made Mourinho the first manager to win a major European competition with four different clubs and the third to win all three European competitions. He joined Turkish Super League club, Fenerbahce in July 2024, but was sacked in August 2025 after failing to qualify for the Champions League.
Mourinho was named Portuguese Coach of the Century by the Portuguese Federation (FPF) in 2015. Due to his tactical knowledge, charismatic and controversial personality, and a reputation for prioritising results over attractive football, he has drawn comparisons—from both admirers and critics with Argentine manager Helenio Herrera.
Early life: Mourinho was born in 1963 into a large middle-class family in Setubal, Portugal, as the son of goalkeeper José Manuel Mourinho Félix, who was known by the name Félix Mourinho, and primary school teacher Maria Júlia Carrajola dos Santos. Family: His father played football professionally for Vitoria Setubel and Belenenses, earning one cap for Portugal in 1972, and later worked as a football manager and the club director of Vitória de Setúbal. His mother was raised by her uncle Mário Lêdo, who came to control the Setúbal sardine canning industry!! and kept a mansion in Aires near Palmela, where Mourinho grew up with his parents.
Education: Mourinho failed in the subject of mathematics during the final year of high school, and this prevented him from finishing high school in time to enrol at the physical education college as was his wish. After finishing high school in the special examination period of September, his mother enrolled him in a private business school because there were no vacant seats for him in the physical education college and his mother believed business school would bring him to a more successful career path. Mourinho dropped out of business school on his first day, deciding he would rather focus on sport, and chose to attend the Instituto Superior de Educação Física of the Technical University of Lisbon to study physical education. He was taught there by his mentor Manuel Sergio, the ex-chairman and deputy director of Belenenses (1975–77), whose humanist approach to kinesiology he later cited as formative!!
Playing career:
Mourinho wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and joined the Belenenses youth team. Graduating to the senior level, he left the club in 1980 to sign for Rio Ave, where he played for the reserve team, and in 1981, was joined by his father, who was named first team manager. There, he struck up a prolific partnership with veteran striker Mário Reis. According to former teammate Baltemar Brito (who would become an assistant to Mourinho early on his managerial career), the duo scored around 100 goals, with Mourinho netting forty-seven times. In addition to playing for the reserves, Mourinho was usually tasked with scouting other teams for his father. He was rarely selected by his father, but he made his debut for the club in the third round of the Taça de Portugal, in a 2–1 extra time win over Salguerios.On the final day of the campaign against champions-elect Sporting CP, a defender was injured in the pre-match warm up, so he was told to get changed. Club president José Maria Pinho, fearing the threat of nepotism, overruled the decision to do so; the incident saw the pair leave to join Belenenses in the summer. Mourinho mostly spent the season playing for the reserve team, and he played for the first team in the second round of the Taca de Portugal against Clube Desportivo de Vila Franca, an amateur club from Sao Miguel Island in the Azores. With Belenenses 8–0 up at half-time, Mourinho came on as a second-half substitute and scored a hat-trick as the team won 17–0, which remains the club's biggest ever victory in the tournament.
When his father returned to Rio Ave, Mourinho did not go with him and continued to play in the lower levels of the Portuguese League system, first with Sesimbra, and then for Comercio Industria, where he finished his career. At the latter club, he was captain of the team and would save the life of a teammate who had gotten trapped in a car that had caught fire. Mourinho decided that he lacked the requisite pace and power to become a professional and chose to focus on becoming a football coach instead.
Coaching career:
After leaving his job as a physical education school teacher, Mourinho looked for a path into professional football management in his hometown and became youth team coach at Vitória de Setúbal in the early 1990s. Later, he accepted the position of assistant manager at Estrela da Amadora then was a scout at Ovarense. Then, in 1992, an opportunity arose to work as a translator for a top foreign coach: Bobby Robson had been appointed as the new manager of Lisbon club Sporting CP and needed an English-speaking local coach to work as his Interpreter. Jose's lovely isn't he!
8th MAY 1993